Kriff!
by AllHailTheGeek
Summary: A collection of short one-shots chronicling the use of this not-so-clean word by our favorite characters. Jedi Knights aren't exactly supposed to swear, but sometimes, they just can't help it...Rated T for language, obviously.
1. Dooku

Dooku was, on all but the rarest occasions, the picture of civility. He was a Count by birth, a Jedi Master by trade, and a man of honor and courtesy by nature; if there was anyone who would not be caught dead with a coarse word on the lips, it was him. As far as Qui-Gon knew, his Master had never so much as _whispered_ a profanity in any form, whether intelligible or not, from the moment of his birth.

Until now.

Qui-Gon had just entered his and Dooku's shared quarters for the night when he heard the noise. First there was a thump, followed by a yell, a sound like fabric ripping, and an almighty crash. And then he heard it, and shook his head to clear whatever debris must be in his ears, because surely he had heard wrong. Could that really have been what his Master said? It was just so unlike him, and yet...

Qui-Gon checked the Master-Padawan bond, and immediately went reeling as his mind was shoved away by the strongest, most ironclad mental defenses he'd ever sensed to date. "Master?" he called aloud instead, hoping against hope that there would be no angry outburst coming.

 _"Kriff! Padawan!"_ came the bellow again, and this time there could be no mistaking it. His Master was horribly, frightfully, blazing and hopping mad. If he was anything short of livid, he would not have just yelled that word to the entire Temple. Qui-Gon briefly considered pulling out his 'saber in self-defense, but then thought better of it as he walked over to Dooku's closed bedroom door and, with no small degree of trepidation, palmed it open.

Dooku lay there, on the floor, amid a scene of general destruction. The small nightstand was overturned, its contents strewn across the room; the covers on the pallet were rumpled and askew; Dooku's lightsaber was lying, deactivated, some distance from his right foot. Dooku himself looked a little the worse for wear; his boots were scuffed, and his favorite cape had a huge rip up the middle. Upon seeing Qui-Gon gawking in the doorway, he roared, _"Well, don't just stand there, Padawan! Help me, Force take it, help me up!"_

Qui-Gon hurried to comply, still marveling at the thundering strength of Dooku's rage. What in the nine Corellian hells had gotten him so angry?! As the older man was helped to his feet and had his 'saber returned by his Padawan, he seemed to anticipate the teenage boy's question. Heaving a sigh, he sat down on the pallet and said stiffly, "Forgive the outburst, Qui-Gon. I forgot myself. I know you have been very busy with the Advanced Galactic Cultures examination coming up, so you might not know that I have been having a most awful day. First Windu manages to rope me into watching the crèche all morning, which is not by any means my favorite activity. Then when I get to the refectory for lunch, those blasted droids have run out of Serenno black tea when yesterday morning they said they had enough to last the week! And then I meditate in the Gardens for a while- I guess that was the only good part. But when I arrive at the dojo for an evening practice session, Madame Nu is there, and she tells me my Form VI level four kata is sloppy. Sloppy! When she herself is better at Soresu or Shii-Cho!

"Now, Padawan, I'll admit I was angrier at this point than a Jedi should rightly be. I got back here about ten minutes ago, after Master Yoda showed up and sent both Jocasta and I to bed. I have been practicing my Form VI ever since. Until I landed a jump too hard and this thing," he gestured to his torn cape, "caught on the corner of my nightstand! It ripped, I grabbed the nightstand and the bed to keep myself from falling, but it was no use- down I went anyway. And so did the nightstand. There, I've told you what happened; now would you mind setting that stand upright again?"

Dooku was back to his usual civil demeanor. Qui-Gon obeyed without question, and proceeded to help his Master pick up the various objects that has been tossed to the floor in the tumble. Now that Dooku's durasteel shields had softened slightly, Qui-Gon could feel the dregs of his fury being released into the Force. Along with a few other words in alien languages floating over the bond, words that he doubted were any less dirty than _kriff._

He would have to ask his Advanced Galactic Cultures teacher about them sometime.


	2. Qui-Gon Jinn

Qui-Gon Jinn could be just about anything if he wanted to. He could be a wise teacher, a cunning diplomat, an impeccable swordsman, a pilot, a slicer, a dignitary, a master of disguise, a friend, a maverick, a superior, a subordinate (but only to the Living Force), and even something like a father to a certain gangly, smooth-talking, redheaded fifteen-year-old boy.

Qui-Gon could also be a linguist, and a holy terror to those who crossed him. Both of which he was most emphatically being at the present juncture.

Another of Obi-Wan's Master's many roles was intragalactic traveler, going wherever the Council, the Force, and his own compassionate flights of fancy dictated. As a result, he learned many local dialects and customs from countless planets, which he always seemed to be putting to good use. This time, it was mostly the dialects that he was utilizing with a vengeance. Obi-Wan's knowledge of Anselmian, High Nubian, Togruti, and Toydarian Huttese was limited, especially in this battered and broken state, but judging by what little he knew, Qui-Gon had made it a point to pick only the most scurrilous words from each language, and several others besides.

Through the thick duracrete walls and toxin-induced haze, he could just make out his Master's voice and the howl of Qui-Gon's emerald blade. Obi-Wan tried, yet again, to touch the Force, to _feel_ something, anything, but he was yet again too tired. The poison was doing strange things to his mind, leaving the world mutable and blurred, shaking on its moorings like a bad Holonet display. Belatedly Obi-wan realized that the ferocious sounds of battle had stopped; the only noise was the low hum of a saber at rest.

And then a fiery oval was carved in the cell door, and Qui-Gon stepped through the molten-edged hole, and Obi-Wan was in his arms before he quite knew what was happening. _"Kriff,_ Padawan," Qui-Gon whispered, his voice as broken as Obi-Wan had ever heard it. "I thought I'd lost you." The sentiment was repeated over the bond, an endless litany of numb relief.

Obi-Wan was too tired to talk. He was too tired to tell whether the tears staining their robes were his or Qui-Gon's, or to distinguish between Qui-Gon's pain and his own. Qui-Gon had killed his guards, had probably done something to everyone else in the compound if not left them dead as well. Obi-Wan was shocked at the receding fury coloring the bond, the lengths to which his beloved teacher would go to make sure he was safe. He wasn't sure if he liked it or not- but then, he wasn't entirely sure of anything right now.

Including the exact meaning of those multilingual swearwords. He would have to ask Qui-Gon about them sometime.


	3. Obi-Wan Kenobi

Obi-Wan Kenobi had been a student for nearly 25 years- in other words, essentially his entire life. Over those 25 years, he had learned a great many things on a great many subjects. Like any Jedi, he was literate in several different tongues, well-versed in the practices of piloting, diplomacy, and lightsaber combat, and possessing of a deep well of patience acquired only by virtue of long, hard work.

On the subject of becoming a surrogate father, however, while simultaneously grieving over the death of one who had been a surrogate father to him, Obi-Wan had not learned a single bit.

And on the subject of taking as Padawan the most unruly, emotional, reckless, talented, _endearing_ Jedi initiate he'd ever heard of, teaching him the ways of the Order while also purging him of the slave's mindset and all the dangerous attachments he'd accrued over his nine long years? Obi-Wan was fairly sure that not even the vast Temple archives had any information on _that!_

Inexperience, he decided, was the driving force behind this, the latest of his mistakes with Anakin. How else could he explain the foolishness, the utter idiocy of locking oneself in a room with the boy for a full half hour and expecting him to _meditate?_ It had been twelve minutes since Master and Padawan had entered the meditation chamber, empty but for a cushion and a set of heavy curtains masking a large window to the outside. In those twelve interminable minutes, Anakin had cried, pouted, run around and around the room screaming, levitated the pillow, hit himself in the face with the curtains by accident, tried to mind-trick Obi-Wan into letting him go, produced a droid part from inside his robes and tinkered with it, sat in the corner and tried to go to sleep, asked over and over when it would be lunchtime, fought an imaginary lightsaber battle, and - to top it all off - managed to somehow trip over his Master's robes and bring Obi-Wan sprawling to the floor on top of him.

Which was when he had said the word.

Years later, Anakin would look back and remember this occasion as the first time his Master ever said _kriff._ It just slipped out, as the frazzled young Knight and the hyperactive young miscreant went down in a pile of jabbing elbows, nerfhide boots, and voluminous brown fabric. Immediately the boy ceased trying to disentangle himself from Obi-Wan and simply gazed up in wonder at the man's face, which was rapidly turning red. How, exactly, could he have allowed himself even a momentary indulgence in profanity? In front of his young, impressionable charge, who already spoke Huttese and - Force forbid - needed nothing less than an expansion of his curse-word vocabulary?

It was not long, however, before his formidable diplomatic instincts kicked in. Extricating himself from the morass of robes and tunics, Obi-Wan stood up and forestalled the boy's inevitable question. "In case you were wondering, Anakin, _kriff_ means approximately the same thing as _daisjo_ in Twi'leki, _haar'chak_ in Mando'a, _irulod'r_ in Rodian, and _jah krohoi_ in Togruti. Which is to say, if I hear you uttering or even thinking any of the five, I shall add a meditation on the merits of eschewing obscene language to your evening schedule."

Anakin's expression of awe hadn't diminished, nor had he moved at all from his vantage point on the floor at his Master's feet. _"Wizard,"_ he breathed, and Obi-Wan felt his heart sink to about the level of his groin.

He would have to ask Master Yoda about the proper method of keeping a Padawan's speech sanitary. Quickly.

But not until at least seventeen minutes into the future, when they finally got out of this blasted room.


	4. Anakin Skywalker

Anakin Skywalker was by no means a model Jedi. His tastes ran less towards the slow, serene, and contemplative, and more towards the fast, violent, and "act first, think later." He had grown up in a despicable hive of scum and villainy, surrounded by things that would give many Core Worlders nightmares, and beneath all his boyish innocence and seemingly boundless compassion, there was a hardened center that had learned not to care about any of that. Where other Jedi liked the sort of large, reliable ships that could get you anywhere, just not very quickly, Anakin liked Pods– or, better yet, starfighters. Where other Jedi relaxed by meditating or walking in the gardens, Anakin relaxed by tinkering with a droid or a speeder until his hands were black and his hair smelled like metal and engine grease.

This peculiarity stretched to his vocabulary as well. Anakin was one of the few Jedi to be completely fluent in all dialects of Huttese, including those not widely spoken except on Hutt-controlled worlds. Some long-ago master had referred to the language as "the mother tongue of criminals everywhere"; one needed only to look at the average vulgarity of a typical Huttese sentence to know why. And Anakin's sentences were no less vulgar than anybody else's. Master Kenobi had tried to correct this many times. Each time, he had failed miserably. Anakin seemed to know more bad language, in Basic as well as Huttese, than the rest of the Temple combined!

Therefore, it came as no surprise to the hot-headed Jedi's equally hot-headed Padawan when, after a particularly awful mission on Sullust, Anakin had sworn a blue streak over something so inconsequential as a ration bar.

It was just getting to be night cycle on the _Resolute_ , which meant meditation for Master Kenobi, bed for Master Skyguy, and dinner for Ahsoka herself. She'd just been to the officer's mess, where a droid had apologetically informed her that they were out of vacuum-sealed nerf steaks. The special, meat-based ration bars the Temple provided for her were far inferior in terms of general palatability, but they were the only other food on this blasted ship she was capable of digesting, so they'd have to do. Ahsoka kept a stash of them in the quarters she shared with Anakin, so it was there that she traveled next.

Upon entering the quarters, she found her Master not present– this was distinctly odd, seeing as his usual schedule involved flopping on the standard hard-as-rocks cot and snoring for a few hours straight as soon as he got back on the cruiser. His presence placed him next door, with Master Kenobi, which was equally odd since Obi-Wan didn't usually take visitors at this hour, during the only chance he got to meditate. Her interest piqued along with her appetite, Ahsoka grabbed a couple ration bars (hey, she was a growing girl, after all!) and tore open the wrapper of the first before exiting the quarters and knocking on the door to Master Kenobi's tiny suite.

The answer came as a torrent of curses in a voice that definitely wasn't Obi-Wan's! Ahsoka was pretty sure she caught at least one in her native Togruti, as well as _kriff_ some three times over and "WHO COULD IT BE NOW?!" slipped in someplace. A second voice that definitely _was_ Obi-Wan's chimed in softly, with Core-accented words she couldn't quite hear, a moment before the door flew open to reveal a thunderously mad Skyguy. Ahsoka shrank on the spot. "Oh, h-hi, Master," she stammered. "I was just w-wondering...uh...where y-you were, yeah, that's it!"

" _Padawan,"_ he growled before stepping aside to let her in. As soon as she was across the threshold, the door slammed shut with a rather unnecessary amount of force. The scene in the room made her gape. Every piece of furniture – which amounted to a nightstand, a single chair, and a standard-issue holocomm display – was lying on the floor, broken in some way. The room appeared to have been ransacked by a very hungry akul, or something of similar enormity and determination!

That something turned out to be Skyguy, who was still ransacking it even as its owner watched. "I tell you, Anakin," said owner was insisting, "unlike you, I don't keep extra ration bars lying around in my quarters!" Ahsoka did a double take. What? Ration bars? Was this what all the mess was about?

"Well, apparently I don't keep any kriffin' ration bars lying around either, because _I can't find them!"_

Master Kenobi pinched the bridge of his nose. "Have you looked in your travel pack, Anakin? Or perhaps your Padawan stole them?"

Anakin immediately rounded on Ahsoka, who already had her hands up in surrender. "I didn't, Master, I swear I didn't! I know I tried it once, but I'm not nearly stupid enough to try it again!"

" _THEN WHERE ARE THEY?!"_ the irate Knight roared in consternation. Obi-Wan's eyebrows disappeared into his reddish hair.

"Easy, Anakin, control your emo–"

"I'll control my emotions when I get my supper, thank you not so very much!"

The contest looked ready to come to blows. Ahsoka decided it was time to step in. Holding out her unopened second ration bar to Anakin as calmly as possible, she said, "Then here, Master, take this. It's one of mine, so I don't know how you'll like it, but at least it's something."

Anakin looked stunned for a second, but then snatched the food out of Ahsoka's hand. Ahsoka thought she heard a mumbled "thank you Snips" before he ripped off the wrapper and took a gigantic bite. He chewed for a moment, before his eyebrows too rose. "Hey, 'Shoka," he commented with his mouth still full of crumbly compressed meat, "dish ish acshuwy pwi'y goo'!"

Ahsoka roughly translated that to mean "Hey, Ahsoka, this is actually pretty good!" and grinned. "Anytime, Skyguy," she replied. "But I'm eating the other one."

Obi-Wan just shook his head as his friends, with their meteoric tempers that he could never quite understand, proceeded to have dinner whilst standing in the middle of his wrecked quarters. He'd have to ask Anakin what some of those Huttese words he'd yelled earlier meant; he had no idea off the top of his head, apart from the fact that they were not words one would tend to hear in civilized conversation. Whether any conversation in Huttese could be called civilized...well, that was a matter of opinion.

He only hoped Ahsoka didn't know the Force-blasted tongue; otherwise he shuddered to think what her language might be like in future!


	5. Ahsoka Tano

**A/N: I have summarily decided "Sith take it, I'll just go into my Ahsoka headcanon anyway." I will be updating my poll choices momentarily. Speaking of the poll, if you have a moment, would you be so kind as to vote? It's on my profile.**

Ahsoka Tano was never one to sleep late. Even in her youngling days she'd annoyed Master Kudi Sai Pama by waking at 0530 every morning and demanding to use the 'fresher. This natural tendency to rise early and sleep light had only been heightened as she became an Imperial fugitive, local police officer, spy, and finally, Rebel elite. It had served her well in some rather sticky situations, most of which involved an escape from someone or other while she was still rubbing her eyes to clear the bleariness. Lately, however, she'd been needing an alarm on her chrono, which made no sense to her. Yes, she'd been training hard day in and day out to return her strength and stamina to Jedi standard, but that meant she was supposed to be able to function as normal by now! Her enlistment was _three months_ ago, for Force sake!

So why, _exactly,_ was she just waking up when her chrono read 1043?!

As soon as she'd seen it, she had leapt out of bed, trying to clear the fog in her mind as quickly as possible. For some reason her alarm had never gone off, and she was paying for it. She'd nearly gotten out the door before she realized her uniform tunic was on backwards, had to correct it, and finally barreled out of her quarters at 1051. _Sithspit!_ she thought wildly as she ran past quarters whose occupants had long since left them, headed for the door to the rest of the base at the end of the hallway. She punched in her personal keycode, waited a second for the antiquated technology...

It didn't open.

Ahsoka tried again, a little slower. She must have been going too fast and made a mistake...Still nothing.

"What the _kriff?!"_ she cursed aloud.

"You're Kosa Tahri, right?" came a voice from her left, using the alias she had now lived under for more than twelve years. She whirled around, instincts immediately dropping her into a defensive crouch before she realized it was only a pilot, leaning casually against the wall of an adjoining corridor. Actually, it wasn't just any pilot: it was that kid Luke, the one who'd destroyed the Death Star! Ahsoka wondered, yet again, if he could possibly be related to Anakin - he had the same last name, blue eyes, and skill in a cockpit, not to mention incredible Force-sensitivity - but no, she shouldn't think about that now. Not ever, if she wanted to keep herself from crying. Even after all these years, the wound was still fresh.

"Um, yeah, I am..." Ahsoka replied, with more than a little confusion.

"Well then, in that case, it won't open."

"What do you mean, it won't open?!"

"I mean your code won't work," Luke replied, with an apologetic smile that reminded her for some reason of the late Senator Amidala. "You've been denied access to the entire base except your quarters for the day. I was sent by your SpecOps captain to tell you that."

 _"WHAT?!"_

"He said someone called Saali ordered you put on bed rest. Something about using the training rooms too much and not getting enough sleep. Apparently Mon Mothma got involved too, 'cuz she used her universal override thingies to turn off the alarm on your chrono remotely and also rig the door."

"...Kriff!"

"Uh, yeah." Luke chuckled nervously.

"No, it's just that Saali is a medic, my friend since she was ten, and I've pulled this type of stunt before! She'll kill me if she thinks I'm overexerting myself! Argh! Why does nobody see that I have to practice? That last simulator run last night, that was horrible, only 82% performance and an accuracy drop at the end- now _that_ was embarrassing, and on top of everything Saali decides to..."

Ahsoka trailed off as she realized, rather belatedly, that Luke was trying with minimal success to hold in a burst of laughter. "What? What's so funny?!" Ahsoka snapped, patience rapidly wearing thin. For Force sake, _she had to get through this door!_

Luke's response was hardly audible for all the laughing. "Kosa, I saw those performance records! You're at 97 percent, you've been above 90 for weeks! What makes you think you're doing horribly?"

"I _know_ how the program grades things! I _know_ it says 97 but really it's 82, 'cuz I did the math and this algorithm is _wimpy_ compared to the one I used to use!"

Luke smirked, just like Ana- no, don't think about him. "I don't know what program you used, but it must have been insane. No really, I think you could thread the Stone Needle back on Tatooine if you-"

"The fact remains that I'm nowhere near my top scores in the gym, my Djem S- I mean, my combat skills are still subpar at best, and I'm a SpecOps agent who needs all that to survive, so _kriff it, I need to get through that door!"_ Ahsoka ended on a panicked yell. She stopped, breathing hard and fast, and simply looked at Luke, who now looked more scared than hysterical.

"Whoa there!" Quite abruptly, the young human changed tactics. "Kosa, don't you see what you're doing? You've exhausted yourself with all this constant training, and now when somebody actually tries to help you, you act as if they're hurting you instead! Go back to bed, please. It's for your own good, really it is."

Ahsoka was momentarily taken aback. For her own good? Exhausted? Well, truth be told, she did feel a little worn out..."Do you actually have Saali's restraining order, or do I have to take your word for it?"

"Nope." Luke grinned. "Got it right here." He produced a piece of flimsi from a pocket in his uniform. Ahsoka skimmed it quickly, finding that it was indeed an official notice from medbay that Kosa Tahri was to be kept on bed rest "until such time as she admits she's only sentient and quits running herself into the ground." Ahsoka chuckled at the satirical comment, no doubt written by Saali.

"I see," she said wryly. "Well, may the Force be with you in the sims today, since obviously I won't be there to give you a hard time so Wes will take it upon himself to do the job. The guy's a holy terror when he wants to be. You have been warned. Good night."

Luke's laughter resounded through the corridor as Ahsoka turned her back on the offending door, sounding uncannily like...him. She had, after all, been 'snippy' with the boy, and this kind of situation had happened a lot, back before everything.

She'd have to ask Luke about his parentage sometime soon; that much was obvious. But not now, when an Alliance cot somehow managed to look like the finest feather bed.

 **Another A/N: Wow, these chapters just get longer and longer! Hopefully the next one will be succinct...hopefully...**


	6. Leia Organa Solo

**A/N: And now, by reader request, Leia's 'kriff' moment! Darth Vader coming soon!**

 **Also, yikes, I seem to have forgotten the disclaimer: If I owned Star Wars, Padmé would have led the Rebel Alliance.**

Leia Organa was a very, very busy woman. What meager free time her job as the New Republic's Minister of State allowed her was soon consumed by her husband, her infant twins, and the occasional afternoon of training with her brother. She refused to become a Jedi, per se, but that didn't faze Luke- somehow nothing did. He trained her anyway. Han was truly a gift from the Force: having a bounty on his head for three years straight had ingrained in him the ability to empathize with her constant state of stress. He was always there with a kind word, an offer to stay up late with Jaina again, or - when things got particularly bad - a glass of Corellian mead and a Wookiee friend willing to look after the babies for a night.

But then there were Those Evenings, the ones that made Leia want to throw her datapad against the wall and see a therapist. Once it had been both twins colicking simultaneously. Another time it had been an all-nighter coinciding with a grueling morning of negotiations, until she finally fell apart at lunch, screamed some words she'd learned from Han at Mon Mothma, and went to find Luke because of his amazing ability to calm her down. Tonight had started out in a rather unsavory fashion, and experienced a rapid decline from bad to much, much worse. Leia was starting to think Jacen was sick; he made it a point to wake up crying every hour or so, and then wake Jaina with it so she had two screaming babies on her hands. And on top of it all, Han and Chewie were off planet on one of their endless freight runs, so there was no one home but her! Force, how bad could things get?!

The Force apparently had a sense of dark humor not unlike Obi-Wan Kenobi's (according to Luke; Leia had only ever seen the man twice, and had never actually spoken with him). Jacen's wails sounded from the other room again, not two seconds before the holocomm went off and Leia noticed a smoky odor emanating from the kitchen door. Cursing under her breath, she scooped the baby boy into her arms and went to answer the holocomm, _just_ managing to smooth her frustration-crinkled expression before Han's blue effigy appeared above the device. _"Hey, sweetheart, how's it goin'?"_ he asked casually, fiddling with something out of view.

"Not well at all. I'm not sure what's up with Jacen, he's been crying almost nonstop, and the torffli-and-thranctill-egg casserole is burning, so I really can't talk…"

Han's eyebrows rose. _"Thranctill egg casserole? That's ambitious of you. Eggs are finicky as hells in my opinion. I'm sorry about the little guy- you think he needs the medcenter?"_

"Maybe. I can't tell. When are you going to be back?" Leia made her haphazard way into the kitchen, carrying the comm set in one hand and a screaming Jacen in the other. A second piercing cry began in the bedroom, and she gritted her teeth to stop a most _unbecoming_ wave of imprecation from tainting the air.

" _Four standard days, and that's bein' optimistic. It's a krething long way to Ryloth, did you know that?"_

"Make it three and I'll take you out to dinner. Stars' end, I swear the galaxy is conspiring to put gray in my hair before I'm thirty!"

Han grimaced. _"That bad, huh? Is it just me or is Jaina crying too?"_

"Yes, she's crying, shavit! And I still have a report to finish for Mon, and...Oh, Han, I don't think I can take much more of this!" She set down the comm on the counter and pulled an oven mitt onto her hand. A billowing cloud of black smoke erupted from the oven as soon as Leia opened it, making Jacen shriek even louder and the fire alarm activate in a flurry of klaxons.

 _"Kriff!"_ Leia cried, the fumes bringing tears to her eyes- or maybe that was just the fact that her dinner was ruined, both babies were liable to damage her hearing, and Han was there to see the _whole karking mess!_

A Shyriiwook growl sounded from the comm set; said smuggler's holographic image winced. _"Wow Chewie, you're right, she is just having a hells of an awful time...anything I can do to help, dear?"_

An idea popped into Leia's head as she frantically grabbed a towel and tried to wave the smoke away from the detector. "Yes. Please, Han, call Luke. Now. I'll talk to you la-"

The very-nearly-fire in the oven went out. At the same moment, she noticed the black-robed man in the doorway, and realized that calling Luke would be more than a little redundant at this point. Her twin brother waved his hand again, causing the window to open of its own accord and the smoke to begin venting outside. "Hey, Leia, I felt you were-" he started, before any remaining words were forced out of him by her rib-bending hug.

"Oh my- oh my Force, Luke, I've just been having the _worst_ night! Do you think you could check Jacen out? Poor guy's been crying on and off all day, though his _mother_ clearly isn't helping matters..."

"Course I can. Here, Jace, lemme see what's up." He took the infant from her, murmuring quietly to him in an effort to calm him down. _"Well, guess I don't need to call him after all,"_ Han remarked with a bemused expression, watching the scene. _"I may never understand how all that Force stuff works. You hafta admit, the old farmboy's really good with kids, though, call it what you like. If you don't mind, Leia, I'll just be going. Dinner time here too and all."_

"No, I don't mind. See you in a few days, nerfherder!"

 _"Bye, Your Worship!"_ Han chuckled and cut the connection.

Meanwhile, Luke came back from the bedroom, where he'd just laid Jacen down with Jaina and a subtle sleep suggestion. "Jacen is fine. It might just have been a cold coming on or something- I'm not that great a healer, so I really can't say. Tell you what, Leia, how about I just order takeout? I assume that was dinner I had to extinguish?"

Leia sighed. "Yes, it was. Thank you so much, Luke. For...well, all of this," she said, gesturing to the room at large, whose air was now noticeably clearer.

"No problem, sister." His smile was as sunny as ever.

She'd have to ask him how he stayed so serene and optimistic all the time. But for now, she simply planted a filial kiss on his cheek as he dialed their favorite Pantoran eatery. Some things could _most definitely_ wait.


	7. Darth Vader

**A/N: By popular demand, the Dark Lord's "kriff" moment! Either Kanan or Ezra (not sure which) coming soon!**

Darth Vader was one of the most imposing figures in the entire known galaxy. His height and heavy build, implacable jet black mask, and eerie, respirator-aided breathing did nothing to _comfort_ any being unlucky enough to find itself in his presence- quite the opposite, in point of fact. Even the most stiff-backed, straight-laced, self-assured men in the Imperial Navy tended to cower when he came close, and not just because of the lightsaber hilt at his side: there were rumors in the lower ranks, that Lord Vader could - and did - do horrible things to any whom he found incompetent. He exuded a palpable aura of domineering hatred- when he was around, you _knew,_ and you feared him. That was the way it worked.

It was impossible to truly _live with_ Lord Vader; acceptable terms of coexistence were the most that Captain Karrac, or anyone, could hope for. And right now those terms included mobilizing his entire crew to install a hyperbaric chamber, decide who was to be on the welcome committee, and otherwise get every last detail of the Star Destroyer worked out in record time. Bridge communications had received the transmission, complete with Code Blue clearance, five and a half standard hours ago. It had said that Lord Vader would be arriving in six. To call Captain Karrac's current state of mind _trepidation_ would be a strong contender for the understatement of the millennium.

His comlink buzzed again and again, as this or that petty officer asked his opinion on this or that trivial matter: _should we wake the reserve soldiers, sir,_ or _my men want to know how to fire the salute, Captain, and I'm afraid I've completely forgotten the protocol_ or _sir, should the ship's Engineering Corps have a delegate in the welcoming party?_ The last one was Colonel Jutless, sounding quite harried; probably that busybody Sergeant, Laanya what's-her-name, from Engineering was arguing her case. Very loudly. By the time Captain Karrac had demanded to speak to Laanya directly and told her in no uncertain terms that yes, there would be an Engineering delegate but so help him, it would not be _her,_ his turbolift had arrived at its destination.

And not a moment too soon. He had about four standard minutes to get himself in dress uniform before it would be too late- why his quarters had to be so far from the main hangar bay he didn't know, but the truth was that it took almost twenty minutes to get from one to the other, even by turbolift. Star Destroyers were, to put it mildly, _massive._ Captain Karrac changed clothes as fast as he possibly could, leaving his regular ones strewn on the floor for some well-meaning droid to pick up later. Fleeing his quarters in what he hoped wasn't complete disarray, he sprinted for the turbolift.

Twenty-two minutes later, the Captain stood quaking in his polished black nerfhide boots as he, eight officers, and a column of stormtroopers stood at sharp attention in the main hangar bay. The _Lambda-_ class shuttle before them sank to the ground with a hiss of repulsors. A single tilt of the trooper sergeant's head sent two of his men scurrying to either side of the boarding ramp now descending from the ship's great underbelly, blaster rifles held at parade rest. And then the ramp lowered fully, hitting the ground with an ominous _clang;_ no sooner had it done this than Darth Vader, _de facto_ heir to the Imperial throne, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Navy and Dark Lord of the Sith (whatever the Sith was), stalked out into full view.

If possible, he looked even angrier than when Captain Karrac had last seen him, at a reviewing of the troops last Empire Day.

Oh, not good.

The petrified Captain could only watch as the Dark Lord approached him first, and pray to whatever gods might possibly exist that his lower lip wasn't trembling _too_ badly. "Captain," the black-armored cyborg's vocoder growled.

"M-my lord," Karrac stuttered, expecting any moment to feel invisible fingers close around his windpipe.

Those insectoid, ever-so-faintly red-tinted eyeplates studied him for a moment, then apparently decided he was worth letting live. "Have you prepared both special amenities, as I instructed?"

"Y-yes, my lord. I can show you to the hyperbaric chamber if you like?"

"That will not be necessary. I require my starfighter, Captain."

"Of c-course, my lord. If you will please follow me, it is in the lower port hangar."

Given his druthers, Captain Karrac would have asked why exactly there had to be a partially dismantled TIE Advanced ready for his esteemed guest. Of course, this was Lord Vader, so asking would be tantamount to suicide, but still...Would it do any harm to just...drop by the lower port hangar in half an hour or so and see what he was _doing?_ Curiosity killed the tooka, though...Shavit, it was blasted hard to scheme when half your brainpower was directed at making sure Vader had no idea you were scheming. Karrac knew that much.

The Dark Lord spoke up suddenly, derailing the Captain's train of thought. "No, Captain, you may not ask what I intend to do with that fighter. I am not in a very good mood today. You could at least humor me by keeping your inane musings to yourself."

"I-I'm sorry, my l-lord, I didn't mean - well, you s-see, I - did I say all that out loud?"

"No, you did not. But in present company you might as well have shouted them. _Fear_ is a wonderful method of projection in the Force."

Karrac hadn't the faintest idea what Vader was talking about, but he did know that his chances of surviving this encounter were dwindling rapidly. A heavy silence descended upon the turbolift, broken only by the relentless wheeze of Vader's breath. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but was actually more like seven minutes, the lift dinged open. A short walk later, which saw Karrac leading and yet feeling nothing like the _leader,_ the pair emerged into a hangar bay full of TIE fighters.

There wasn't much going on, but what activity there was ceased the moment Vader swept into view. Every technician dropped what he was doing and stood at attention, spine ramrod straight. Murmurs of "my lord" and "Lord Vader, sir" followed his progress, like ghosts trailing at their master's heels. One fighter, the stripped-down shell of a TIE Advanced, had been given a wide berth, for obvious reasons; Vader strode up to it, growling at an unfortunate nearby corporal to bring him a toolbox.

Forty-three minutes later, Captain Karrac peeked past the support strut of a dormant shuttle at the odd scene in front of him. A pair of black boots protruded from the crawlspace underneath the most souped-up starfighter the Captain had seen to date, a far cry from the mess of loose wires and tritanium frame it had been less than an hour ago. Scattered technological paraphernalia - hydrospanners, circuit boards, spare fuel injectors - shared floor space with a pile of ebony fabric looking suspiciously like a discarded cape. Metallic noises issued from the underside of the ship, including a rhythmic, grating wheeze. " _Kriff,"_ rumbled a harsh baritone vocoder, but without any real venom.

A slow smile spread across Karrac's face. So maybe he wouldn't ask Vader what he was doing with the TIE- one did not interrupt a mechanic at work, regardless of whether said mechanic happened to be one's Commander-in-Chief. Sparks flew, something clanked, and suddenly the fearsome Dark Lord didn't seem quite so fearsome anymore.


End file.
